1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to surge protection devices for protecting telecommunications related equipment and associated sensitive electrical components from over-voltage and/or over-current transient surges.
2. Prior Art
As is generally known to those skilled in the telecommunications industry, modern telecommunications related equipment is susceptible to transient surges such as those caused by lightning strikes and other voltage/current surges occurring on the incoming power lines. During the occurrence of the lightning strikes or the voltage/current surges on the incoming power lines in a power distribution network provided by electric utility companies, the power lines may become crossed-over or applied directly to the incoming telecommunication lines carrying voice signals, data signals and the like to a users' or consumers' equipment. The voice/data signals may be used for transmitting and/or receiving signals to and from various types of customers' electrical or office equipment, such as telephone sets, computers, facsimile machines, photocopiers, alarm devices, modems, or high-speed interface circuit devices (T-1 line, DSL network, Ethernet network, 10/100/1000 Base-T interface, etc.).
Therefore, it is typically necessary to provide telephone lines with surge protection devices so as to protect equipment connected to the transmission lines from transient voltage and/or current surges. Such surge protection devices are generally operated as shunt-connected clamping devices. Under normal operating conditions, the clamping devices act as a high-impedance path or ideally an open circuit to a protected transmission line. When a transient voltage exceeds the normal operating voltage of the transmission line, the clamping device will create a low-impedance path to ground so as to prevent damage to the equipment caused by the transient. Once the line voltage returns to a normal operating level, the clamping device will return automatically to a high-impedance state.
Accordingly, there exist various types of surge protector circuits for protecting telecommunications related equipment from transient voltage and/or current surges occurring on transmission lines coupled thereto. However, known surge protector circuits suffer from a number of disadvantages. For example, certain known Category 5 surge protector circuits could not meet the transmission line loss limitations set forth by the Telecommunication Industry Association (TIA) for Category 6 standards. In addition, while certain known Category 6 surge protector circuits provided good transmission loss control, they were unable to provide RJ-45 jack interface connections. It would therefore be desirable to provide an improved surge protector for protecting telecommunications related equipment from transient voltage surges occurring on transmission lines coupled thereto which meets the performance TIA specifications of Category 6 while providing standard RJ-45 connections without the need of adding magnetic components thereto.
The present surge protector includes a plurality of surge protection circuits and has particular applications in being used for protecting telecommunications related equipment and associated sensitive electrical components from over-voltage transients occurring on four differential-pairs of tip and ring conductors of telecommunication or signal lines coupled thereto.